Mother, Grandmother Stand Trial in Girl’s Death

By

Pervaiz Shallwani

Apr 16, 2012 6:50 pm ET

The murder trial of a Brooklyn mother and grandmother who allegedly starved 4-year-old Marchella Pierce got underway Monday, with a defense lawyer arguing that the girl’s death was caused by incompetence instead of cruelty.

In his opening argument, defense attorney Alan Stutman portrayed Carlotta Brett-Pierce as a mother who wasn’t prepared to care for her prematurely born daughter and yet was cleared to do so and left unsupervised. Marchella weighed less than 2 pounds at birth and was in and out of hospitals until February 2010, when she was released to her mother.

“There was no one there to support her,” said Stutman. “There was no one on the outside knocking on the door. There was not intervention. She thought what she was doing was the right thing.”

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